From the sweeping lakefront lawn, the Otesaga Hotel rises in red brick grandeur above Cooperstown's Otsego Lake — the very "Glimmerglass" that James Fenimore Cooper immortalized in his Leatherstocking Tales — while a caption quietly notes that the grand resort served a second life each winter as the Knox School for Girls, a detail that gives this card a rare dual-identity charm. Published by Chas. W. Hughes of Mechanicville and carrying a 1-cent domestic postage rate indicator on the back, this card dates to the White Border transitional era, the rate placing it firmly between 1898 and 1917. The hand-tinted image bathes the colonnaded facade in warm afternoon light, the dome of the central cupola visible through a canopy of elms, the croquet-smooth lawn rolling down to where the photographer — unnamed — must have stood at the water's edge. The Otesaga, which opened in 1909, remains one of upstate New York's most storied resort hotels and continues to operate today; the Knox School connection makes this card of additional interest to educational history collectors.